TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGEFRANK POKIAK

The Inuvialuit’s relationship with caribou runs deep. From the very beginning, their survival in a harsh environment depended on the protection and sustenance provided by the caribou’s meat and skins. Hunters to this day are grateful, and enact rituals to give thanks to the animals they harvest, but much is changing for a new generation of hunters.

Many no longer know how to use all the parts of the animal. We ask Frank Pokiak, veteran caribou hunter and chair of the IGC and WMEC to share his traditional knowledge.

“Nowadays when I go on the land, I see people leaving behind the head and legs. They only take the meat because they don’t know what to do with the rest. I take home what they leave. If you cut open the leg you will find tasty marrow. We’ve brought our grandchildren up to know that.”

“My grandchildren were telling their classmates which parts of the caribou they eat; eyeballs and brains, head and tongue. Their classmates are grossed out. If you don’t cook the eyeballs too much, you can use it as a rubber ball. If you want to eat it, you have to cook it until it’s really soft.”

Frank laughs. Different cultures have different perspectives of what “delicious” means. The Inuvialuit follow the caribou’s migrating patterns, and Frank’s father took him to Aklavik to get his first caribou when there were none in Tuktoyaktuk. It was rite of passage for a young hunter. “We celebrated. My whole family shared it. I sent the first few caribou I got to family members in Tuktoyaktuk. We have a big family, it didn’t last very long.”

Caribou can also be made into spiced jerky and dry meat. “It is very good. We also cook the sinew from the legs, and boil the hoofs until its very soft. The caribou has a part called the “bible”, it looks like it has pages on it. We clean and boil that. There’s another part, the “sausage”, near the lower intestines. We stuff it with small pieces of kidney, tongue and heart. The waste track, I am not sure if a lot of people use it, but if you turn it inside out and fry it with meat until it’s crispy, man it’s tasty! There is also a coating of fat over the guts, we wash and hang it dry for frying with meat.”

“We like the natural flavour and don’t really spice it. We only add spices to caribou soup, and eat that with plain rice and onions.”

YOUNGER HUNTER - DOUGIE JOE

Many Inuvialuit prefer the flavour of caribou to frozen meat choices at supermarkets. A younger hunter, Dougie Joe would take caribou “any day” over other meats. He has hunted by himself since he was fourteen, and was taught by a great number of his family; “stepfather, uncles, aunts, grandmother and great uncle”. He knows most of the traditional knowledge, that the “bible” of the caribou is taken from its stomach, but has never eaten it. He skins and butchers the caribou he catches on the spot, and before discarding the carcass, he slits its throat to let the spirit out. He believes this allows him to catch more caribou at his next hunt.

He uses most of the meat, “The women in our home are matriarchs. I give the meat to them and they make it into dry meat and do the cooking.” He eats the eyeballs of the caribou and roasts the head, but has never used the eyeballs as bouncing balls, because he was taught never to play with his food.

To catch caribou, he said you have to “sneak around them” because they are “skittish”. You have to be quick on your feet to stay behind their field of vision. You need to make clean shots to ensure a maximum amount of usable meat.

While Dougie wants to live off the land like his ancestors, he lives in town periodically for seasonal work. Sometimes he works with researchers from UBC, Carlton University and Indian and Northern Affairs, but most of his other gigs involve manual labour.

He said he has not seen caribou on the road to the airport from Inuvik since he was fourteen. Before that, he used to catch so much caribou there, he had to make two trips in a day to get the harvests home. Now, he has to travel at least 150 miles out of town to hunt, following the indication of satellite tracking collars that are put on caribou by wildlife management organizations.

“I am worried about the future of the caribou. It seems like oil and gas exploration is changing their migrating patterns. They’ve just approved oil drilling in Alaska, the above-ground pipeline seems to affect their migration path, especially from here to Tuktoyaktuk,” he said.

Concerns

There is amazement in their tones when Frank and Dougie talk about caribou. They delight in how you can use their skin to make “mattresses”, warm, cushy and portable bedding for hunting trips; they know fall is the best time for harvesting the skins to make winter clothes, and summer is when you harvest skin to make thinner coats. Frank said mukluks are especially beautiful when the skin from the caribou’s legs are used to make patterns. “The hair doesn’t shed from there.”

Dougie laughs about caribou mating habits; they pee on themselves to make “cologne” to attract females, giving up on eating and starting to fight. Both hunters know rutting means the meat is less fat, and that females are the easiest to catch. They both believe in hunting and providing for their families. Frank is happy to say caribou hunted by those in Tuktoyaktuk are shared with the less fortunate, those who are unable to go out on the land.

As experienced elder and younger hunter, they both share concern about the reported decrease in numbers of caribou, and the resulting harvest quota that could be imposed.

Frank said, “According to surveys done last year, caribou herds are declining. But ENR will do another census in June this year to see if it’s true. The wildlife co-management bodies support the collaring of caribou so we can stay informed about the species. We will get a better idea after the next count.”

“After the results from the last survey, people from the community of Tuktoyaktuk with TK (traditional knowledge) said there’s an area that was missed. And after a meeting in Whitehorse with the Inuvialuit Game Council, ENR found about an additional 2400 caribou that weren’t included”.

There are also issues about herds being separated into three different herds. “You can’t identify the difference visually,” Frank said. “Surveys found the herds to calf in three areas, and so scientists named them Bluenose West, Bluenose East and Cape Bathurst.”

From the census last fall, the Bluenose West herd is said to be down to 20,800 animals from 74,300. The Cape Bathurst were down to 2,400 from 10,000, and the Bluenose East were down to 66,600 from 104,000.

Eddie Dillion of Tuktoyaktuk said, “It is frustrating. They are trying to make us turn to oil instead of sustainable resources like caribou.”

Frank said the people are watching closely for results from the next count. The good thing about Northern life is that all are allowed to speak before final decisions are made. “We should get more people to talk about it,” said Frank, “They missed half the herd last time, so we hope the new numbers will be more positive with the help of traditional knowledge”.

by Lynda Hutcheson